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Open Letter from World Scientists to All Governments
Concerning Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

The World Scientists Statement dates from 1999. It was superceded by the Independent Science Panel Report in 2003, and by the most recent report Ban GMOs Now in 2013. We are no longer collecting signatures for this statement.

The scientists are extremely concerned about the hazards of GMOs to
biodiversity, food safety, human and animal health, and demand a
moratorium on environmental releases in accordance with the precautionary
principle.

They are opposed to GM crops that will intensify corporate monopoly,
exacerbate inequality and prevent the essential shift to sustainable
agriculture that can provide food security and health around the world.

They call for a ban on patents of life-forms and living processes
which threaten food security, sanction biopiracy of indigenous knowledge
and genetic resources and violate basic human rights and dignity.

They want more support on research and development of non-corporate,
sustainable agriculture that can benefit family farmers all over the
world.

Previous versions of this letter were submitted to many governments and international forums including:

Open Letter from World
Scientists to All Governments

Summary

We, the undersigned scientists, call for the immediate suspension of
all environmental releases of GM crops and products, both commercially and
in open field trials, for at least 5 years; for patents on living
processes, organisms, seeds, cell lines and genes to be revoked and
banned; and for a comprehensive public enquiry into the future of
agriculture and food security for all.

Patents on life-forms and living processes should be banned because they
threaten food security, sanction biopiracy of indigenous knowledge and
genetic resources, violate basic human rights and dignity, compromise
healthcare, impede medical and scientific research and are against the
welfare of animals.

GM crops offer no benefits to farmers or consumers. Instead, many
problems have been identified, including yield drag, increased herbicide
use, erratic performance, and poor economic returns to farmers. GM crops
also intensify corporate monopoly on food, which is driving family farmers
to destitution, and preventing the essential shift to sustainable
agriculture that can guarantee food security and health around the world

The hazards of GMOs to biodiversity and human and animal health are now
acknowledged by sources within the UK and US Governments. Particularly
serious consequences are associated with the potential for horizontal gene
transfer. These include the spread of antibiotic resistance marker genes
that would render infectious diseases untreatable, the generation of new
viruses and bacteria that cause diseases, and harmful mutations which may
lead to cancer.

In the Cartegena Biosafety Protocol negotiated in Montreal in January
2000, more than 130 governments have pledged to implement the
precautionary principleand to ensure that biosafety legislations
at the national and international levels take precedence over trade and
financial agreements at the World Trade Organization.

Successive studies have documented the productivity and the social and
environmental benefits of sustainable, low-input and organic farming in
both North and South. They offer the only practical way of restoring
agricultural land degraded by conventional agronomic practices, and
empower small family farmers to combat poverty and hunger.

We urge the US Congress to reject GM crops as both hazardous and
contrary to the interest of family farmers; and to support research and
development of sustainable agricultural methods that can truly benefit
family farmers all over the world.

We, the undersigned scientists, call for the immediate suspension of
all environmental releases of GM crops and products, both commercially and
in open field trials, for at least 5 years; for patents on living
processes, organisms, seeds, cell lines and genes to be revoked and
banned; and for a comprehensive public enquiry into the future of
agriculture and food security for all.

1 Patents on life-forms and living processes should be banned because
they threaten food security, sanction biopiracy of indigenous knowledge
and genetic resources, violate basic human rights and dignity, compromise
healthcare, impede medical and scientific research and are against the
welfare of animals(1). Life-forms such as organisms, seeds, cell lines and
genes are discoveries and hence not patentable. Current GM techniques
which exploit living processes are unreliable, uncontrollable and
unpredictable, and do not qualify as inventions. Furthermore, those
techniques are inherently unsafe, as are many GM organisms and products.

2. It is becoming increasingly clear that current GM crops are neither
needed nor beneficial. They are a dangerous diversion preventing the
essential shift to sustainable agricultural practices that can provide
food security and health around the world.

3. Two simple characteristics account for the nearly 40 million hectares
of GM crops planted in 1999(2). The majority (71%) are tolerant to
broad-spectrum herbicides, with companies engineering plants to be
tolerant to their own brand of herbicide, while most of the rest are
engineered with bt-toxins to kill insect pests. A university-based survey
of 8200 field trials of the most widely grown GM crops, herbicide-tolerant
soya beans - revealed that they yield 6.7% less and required two to five
times more herbicides than non-GM varieties(3). This has been confirmed by
a more recent study in the University of Nebraska(4). Yet other problems
have been identified: erratic performance, disease susceptibility(5),
fruit abortion(6) and poor economic returns to farmers(7).

4. According to the UN food programme, there is enough food to feed the
world one and a half times over. While world population has grown 90% in
the past 40 years, the amount of food per capita has increased by 25%, yet
one billion are hungry(8). A new FAO report confirms that there will be
enough or more than enough food to meet global demands without taking into
account any yield improvementsthat might result from GM crops well into
2030 (9). It is on account of increasing corporate monopoly operating
under the globalised economy that the poor are getting poorer and
hungrier(10). Family farmers around the world have been driven to
destitution and suicide, and for the same reasons. Between 1993 and 1997
the number of mid-sized farms in the US dropped by 74,440(11), and farmers
are now receiving below the average cost of production for their
produce(12). The farming population in France and Germany fell by 50%
since 1978(13). In the UK, 20 000 farming jobs were lost in the past year
alone, and the Prime Minister has announced a £200m aid package(14).
Four corporations control 85% of the world trade in cereals at the end of
1999(15). Mergers and acquisitions are continuing.

5. The new patents on seeds intensify corporate monopoly by preventing
farmers from saving and replanting seeds, which is what most farmers still
do in the Third World. In order to protect their patents, corporations are
continuing to develop terminator technologies that genetic engineer
harvested seeds not to germinate, despite worldwide opposition from
farmers and civil society at large(16).

6. Christian Aid, a major charity working with the Third World,
concluded that GM crops will cause unemployment, exacerbate Third World
debt, threaten sustainable farming systems and damage the environment. It
predicts famine for the poorest countries(17). African Governments
condemned Monsanto's claim that GMOs are needed to feed the hungry of the
world: "We..strongly object that the image of the poor and hungry
from our countries is being used by giant multinational corporations to
push a technology that is neither safe, environmentally friendly, nor
economically beneficial to us we believe it will destroy the
diversity, the local knowledge and the sustainable agricultural systems
that our farmers have developed for millennia and undermine our
capacity to feed ourselves.(18)" A message from the Peasant movement
of the Philippines to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) of the industrialized countries stated, "The entry
of GMOs will certainly intensify landlessness, hunger and injustice.(19)"

7. A coalition of family farming groups in the US have issued a
comprehensive list of demands, including ban on ownership of all
life-forms; suspension of sales, environmental releases and further
approvals of all GM crops and products pending an independent,
comprehensive assessment of the social, environmental, health and economic
impacts; and for corporations to be made liable for all damages arising
from GM crops and products to livestock, human beings and the
environment(20). They also demand a moratorium on all corporate mergers
and acquisitions, on farm closures, and an end to policies that serve big
agribusiness interests at the expense of family farmers, taxpayers and the
environment(21). They have mounted a lawsuit against Monsanto and nine
other corporations for monopolistic practices and for foisting GM crops on
farmers without adequate safety and environmental impact assessments(22).

8. Some of the hazards of GM crops are openly acknowledged by the UK and
US Governments. UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) has
admitted that the transfer of GM crops and pollen beyond the planted
fields is unavoidable(23), and this has already resulted in
herbicide-tolerant weeds(24). An interim report on UK Government-sponsored
field trials confirmed hybridisation between adjacent plots of different
herbicide tolerant GM oilseed rape varieties, which gave rise to hybrids
tolerant to multiple herbicides. In addition, GM oilseed rape and their
hybrids were found as volunteers in subsequent wheat and barley crops,
which had to be controlled by standard herbicides(25). Bt-resistant insect
pests have evolved in response to the continuous presence of the toxins in
GM plants throughout the growing season, and the US Environment Protection
Agency is recommending farmers to plant up to 40% non-GM crops in order to
create refugia for non-resistant insect pests(26).

9. The threats to biodiversity from major GM crops already
commercialized are becoming increasingly clear. The broad-spectrum
herbicides used with herbicide-tolerant GM crops decimate wild plant
species indiscriminately, they are also toxic to animals. Glufosinate
causes birth defects in mammals(27), and glyphosate is linked to
non-Hodgkin lymphoma(28). GM crops with bt-toxins kill beneficial insects
such as bees(29) and lacewings(30), and pollen from bt-corn is found to be
lethal to monarch butterflies(31) as well as swallowtails(32). Bt-toxin is
exuded from roots of bt-plants in the rhizosphere, where it rapidly binds
to soil particles and become protected from degradation. As the toxin is
present in an activated, non-selective form, both target and non-target
species in the soil will be affected(33), with knock on effects on species
above ground.

10. Products resulting from genetically modified organisms can also be
hazardous. For example, a batch of tryptophan produced by GM
microorganisms was associated with at least 37 deaths and 1500 serious
illnesses(34). Genetically modified Bovine Growth Hormone, injected into
cows in order to increase milk yield, not only causes excessive suffering
and illnesses for the cows but increases IGF-1 in the milk, which is
linked to breast and prostate cancers in humans(35). It is vital for the
public to be protected from all GM products, and not only those containing
transgenic DNA or protein. That is because the process of genetic
modification itself, at least in the form currently practised, is
inherently unsafe.

11. Secret memoranda of US Food and Drug Administration revealed that it
ignored the warnings of its own scientists that genetic engineering is a
new departure and introduces new risks. Furthermore, the first GM crop to
be commercialized - the Flavr Savr tomato - did not pass the required
toxicological tests(36). Since then, no comprehensive scientific safety
testing had been done until Dr. Arpad Pusztai and his collaborators in the
UK raised serious concerns over the safety of the GM potatoes they were
testing. They conclude that a significant part of the toxic effect may be
due to the "[gene] construct or the genetic transformation (or both)"
used in making the GM plants(37).

12. The safety of GM foods was openly disputed by Professor Bevan
Moseley, molecular geneticist and current Chair of the Working Group on
Novel Foods in the European Union's Scientific Committee on Food(38). He
drew attention to unforseen effects inherent to the technology,
emphasizing that the next generation of GM foods - the so-called
'neutraceuticals' or 'functional foods', such as vitamin A 'enriched' rice
- will pose even greater health risks because of the increased complexity
of the gene constructs.

13. Genetic engineering introduces new genes and new combinations of
genetic material constructed in the laboratory into crops, livestock and
microorganisms(39). The artificial constructs are derived from the genetic
material of pathogenic viruses and other genetic parasites, as well as
bacteria and other organisms, and include genes coding for antibiotic
resistance. The constructs are designed to break down species barriers and
to overcome mechanisms that prevent foreign genetic material from
inserting into genomes. Most of them have never existed in nature in the
course of billions of years of evolution.

14. These constructs are introduced into cells by invasive methods that
lead to random insertion of the foreign genes into the genomes (the
totality of all the genetic material of a cell or organism). This gives
rise to unpredictable, random effects, including gross abnormalities in
animals and unexpected toxins and allergens in food crops.

15. One construct common to practically all GM crops already
commercialized or undergoing field trials involves a gene-switch
(promoter) from the cauliflower mosaic virus (CaMV) spliced next to the
foreign gene (transgene) to make it over-express continuously(40). This
CaMV promoter is active in all plants, in yeast, algae and E. coli. We
recently discovered that it is even active in amphibian egg(41) and human
cell extract(42). It has a modular structure, and is interchangeable, in
part, or in whole with promoters of other viruses to give infectious
viruses. It also has a 'recombination hotspot' where it is prone to break
and join up with other genetic material(43).

16. For these and other reasons, transgenic DNA - the totality of
artificial constructs transferred into the GMO - may be more unstable and
prone to transfer again to unrelated species; potentially to all species
interacting with the GMO(44).

17. The instability of transgenic DNA in GM plants is well-known(45). GM
genes are often silenced, but loss of part or all of the transgenic DNA
also occurs, even during later generations of propagation(46). We are
aware of no published evidence for the long term stability of GM inserts
in terms of structure or location in the plant genome in any of the GM
lines already commercialized or undergoing field trials.

18. The potential hazards of horizontal transfer of GM genes include the
spread of antibiotic resistance genes to pathogens, the generation of new
viruses and bacteria that cause disease and mutations due to the random
insertion of foreign DNA, some of which may lead to cancer in mammalian
cells(47). The ability of the CaMV promoter to function in all species
including human beings is particularly relevant to the potential hazards
of horizontal gene transfer.

19. The possibility for naked or free DNA to be taken up by mammalian
cells is explicitly mentioned in the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
draft guidance to industry on antibiotic resistance marker genes(48). In
commenting on the FDA's document, the UK MAFF pointed out that transgenic
DNA may be transferred not just by ingestion, but by contact with plant
dust and air-borne pollen during farm work and food processing(49). This
warning is all the more significant with the recent report from Jena
University in Germany that field experiments indicated GM genes may have
transferred via GM pollen to the bacteria and yeasts in the gut of bee
larvae(50).

20. Plant DNA is not readily degraded during most commercial food
processing(51). Procedures such as grinding and milling left grain DNA
largely intact, as did heat-treatment at 90deg.C. Plants placed in silage
showed little degradation of DNA, and a special UK MAFF report advises
against using GM plants or plant waste in animal feed.

21. The human mouth contains bacteria that have been shown to take up
and express naked DNA containing antibiotic resistance genes, and similar
transformable bacteria are present in the respiratory tracts(52).

22. Antibiotic resistance marker genes from GM plants have been found to
transfer horizontally to soil bacteria and fungi in the laboratory(53).
Field monitoring revealed that GM sugar beet DNA persisted in the soil for
up to two years after the GM crop was planted. And there is evidence
suggesting that parts of the transgenic DNA have transferred horizontally
to bacteria in the soil(54).

23. Recent research in gene therapy and nucleic acid (both DNA and RNA)
vaccines leaves little doubt that naked/free nucleic acids can be taken
up, and in some cases, incorporated into the genome of all mammalian cells
including those of human beings. Adverse effects already observed include
acute toxic shock, delayed immunological reactions and autoimmune
reactions(55).

24. The British Medical Association, in their interim report (published
May, 1999), called for an indefinite moratorium on the releases of GMOs
pending further research on new allergies, the spread of antibiotic
resistance genes and the effects of transgenic DNA.

25. In the Cartegena Biosafety Protocol successfully negotiated in
Montreal in January, 2000, more than 130 governments have agreed to
implement the precautionary principle, and to ensure that biosafety
legislations at the national and international levels take precedence over
trade and financial agreements at the WTO. Similarly, delegates to the
Codex Alimentarius Commission Conference in Chiba Japan, March 2000, have
agreed to prepare stringent regulatory procedures for GM foods that
include pre-market evaluation, long-term monitoring for health impacts,
tests for genetic stability, toxins, allergens and other unintended
effects(56). The Cartegena Biosafety Protocol has now been signed by 68
Governments in Nairobi in May, 2000.

26. We urge all Governments to take proper account of the now
substantial scientific evidence of actual and suspected hazards arising
from GM technology and many of its products, and to impose an immediate
moratorium on further environmental releases, including open field trials,
in accordance with the precautionary principle as well as sound science.

27. Successive studies have documented the productivity and
sustainability of family farming in the Third World as well as in the
North(57). Evidence from both North and South indicates that small farms
are more productive, more efficient and contribute more to economic
development than large farms. Small farmers also tend to make better
stewards of natural resources, conserving biodiversity and safeguarding
the sustainability of agricultural production(58). Cuba responded to the
economic crisis precipitated by the break up of the Soviet Bloc in 1989 by
converting from conventional large scale, high input monoculture to small
organic and semi-organic farming, thereby doubling food production with
half the previous input(59).

28. Agroecological approaches hold great promise for sustainable
agriculture in developing countries, in combining local farming knowledge
and techniques adjusted to local conditions with contemporary western
scientific knowledge(60). The yields have doubled and tripled and are
still increasing. An estimated 12.5 million hectares worldwide are already
successfully farmed in this way(61). It is environmentally sound and
affordable for small farmers. It recovers farming land marginalized by
conventional intensive agriculture. It offers the only practical way of
restoring agricultural land degraded by conventional agronomic practices.
Most of all, it empowers small family farmers to combat poverty and
hunger.

29. We urge all Governments to reject GM crops on grounds that they are
both hazardous and contrary to ecologically sustainable use of resources.
Instead they should support research and development of sustainable
agricultural methods that can truly benefit family farmers the world over.

US Department of Agriculture now holds two new
patents on terminator technology jointly with Delta and Pine. These
patents were issued in 1999. AstraZeneca are patenting similar
techniques. Rafi communique, March, 2000

See Ho, M.W. and Tappeser, B. (1997). Potential
contributions of horizontal gene transfer to the transboundary movement
of living modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology.
Proceedings of Workshop on Transboundary Movement of Living Modified
Organisms resulting from Modern biotechnology : Issues and Opportunities
for Policy-makers (K.J. Mulongoy, ed.), pp. 171-193, International
Academy of the Environment, Geneva.

See Wraight, C.L., Zangerl, R.A., Carroll, M.J. and
Berenbaum, M.R. (2000). Absence of toxicity of Bacillus thuringiensis
pollen to black swallowtails under field conditions. PNAS Early Edition
www.pnas.org; despite the claim in
the title, the paper reports toxicity of bt-pollen from a
high-expressing line to swallowtail larvae in the laboratory. The issue
of bt-crops is reviewed in "Swallowing the tale of the swallowtail"
and "To Bt or Not to Bt", ISIS News
#5

See Pretty, J. (1995). Sustainable Agriculture,
Earthscan, London; also Pretty, J. (1998). The Living Land -
Agriculture, Food and Community Regeneration in Rural Europe,
Earthscan, London; see also Alternative Agriculture: Report of the
National Academy of Sciences, Washington D.C., 1989.

Rosset, P. (1999). The Multiple Functions and
Benefits of Small Farm Agriculture In the Context of Global Trade
Negotiations, The Institute for Good and Development Policy, Policy
Brief No. 4, Oakland.

Mruphy, C. (1999). Cultivating Havana: Urban
Agriculture and Food Security in the Years of Crisis, Institute for
Food and Development Policy, Development Report No. 12, Oakland.

Altieri, M., Rosset, P. and Trupp, L.A. (1998). The
Potential of Agroecology to Combat Hunger in the Developing World,
Institute for Food and Development Policy Report, Oakland, California.